  TO H. P. K. I. THE SEARCH W “WHY dost thou hide from these Out along the hills halloaing? Why hast forbade Thy face, O goddess! to thy votaries?” “Unasking and unknowing Is he whom I make glad, Like Dian grandly going To the sleeping shepherd-lad. Men that pursue learn not To follow is my lot.” “Happiness, secret one, Heartbeat of the April weather, Where art thou found? Tell; lest I err too, yonder in the sun.” “Call in thine eye from ether, Thy feet from far ground; Seek Honor in this heather, With austere purples wound. Serve her: she will reveal Me, hound-like, at thy heel.” II. FACT AND THE MYSTIC “Good-morrow, Symbol.”—“Call me not The name I neither love nor merit.” —“That grave eternal name inherit, Thine ever, though all men forgot.” “Mistake me not; secure and free, From rock to rock my falchion passes: But Symbols trail through gray morasses The tattered shows of faËry.” “My Symbol thou, of phantom blood, With starlight from thy temples raying; Along thy floated body playing Are withering wings, and wings in bud.” “Alas, thine eye with clay is sealed.” —“Symbol, before the clay’s denial, While yet I had a god’s espial, I saw thee in a solar field!” “Nay: I am Fact.”—“Then lose thy praise; And lest to-day no song behoove thee, Lest mine impeach thee, or reprove thee, Ah, Symbol, Symbol! go thy ways.” “Where shall I find my light?” “Turn from another’s track: Whether for gain or lack, Love but thy natal right. Cease to follow withal, Though on thine up-led feet Flakes of the phosphor fall. Oracles overheard Are never again for thee, Nor at a magian’s knee Under the hemlock tree, Burns the illumining word.” “Whence shall I take my law?” “Neither from sires nor sons, Nor the delivered ones, Holy, invoked with awe. Rather, dredge the divine Out of thine own poor dust, Feebly to speak and shine. Schools shall be as they are: Be thou truer, and stray Alone, intent, and away, In a savage wild to obey A dim primordial star.” “Recall for me, recall The time more true and ample; The world whereon I trample, How tortuous and small! Behold, I tire of all. Once, gods in jeweled mail Through greenwood ways invited; There now the moon is blighted, And mosses long and pale On lifeless cedars trail.” “Child, keep this good unrest: But give to thine own story Simplicity with glory; To greatness dispossessed, Dominion of thy breast. In abstinence, in pride, Thou, who from Folly’s boldest Thy sacred eye withholdest, Another morn shalt ride At Agamemnon’s side.” |
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